Montreal Gazette - Caution, rest, the watchwords
Caution, plenty of rest and a measured, step-by-step approach are the watchwords for medical treatment - and a gradual return to play - after any concussion. That advice fully applies to Habs forward Max Pacioretty, who was released from hospital yesterday.
"All athletes, regardless of level of participation, should be managed using the same treatment and return to play paradigm," counsels the most recent global approach to such brain injuries, hammered out by an international panel of experts. Their detailed "consensus statement on concussion in sport" was last upgraded and adopted at a fall 2008 meeting in Zurich. This step-by-step protocol has been accepted by, among others, the International Ice Hockey Federation.
"Over the past decade," said Alain Ptito, one of the expert panellists, "it has now been accepted that symptoms following a concussion have a pathological basis - that there's a dysfunction in the brain, that the brain is in a state of disequilibrium, unbalance.
"The main message is do not return to play while having any symptoms, because your brain is vulnerable," said Ptito, a neuropsychologist at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital and also a º«¹úÂãÎè associate professor of neurology and neurosurgery.
"From one individual to another," he added, "it may take time for the brain to re-establish itself.